As incredible as it might seem, POWs at Stalag Luft III, 90 miles from Berlin, played hockey while in captivity. These photos, and those at bottom, courtesy Marilyn Walton.

At the morning skates Friday at the Pepsi Center, I had a nice chat with Capitals radio play-by-play broadcaster John Walton, with whom I became acquainted in a roundabout way.

John’s grandfather, Lt. Col. Thomas F. Jeffers, was a bombardier on a B-24 crew during World War II. After his plane was shot down on June 18, 1944, Jeffers spent nearly a year as a prisoner of war in, first, the infamous Stalag Luft III — the “Great Escape” camp — for Allied officers near Sagan, Germany (present-day Zagan, Poland). Then, after a forced mass evacuation and march of the prisoners began on January 27, 1945, Jeffers and the POWs ended up at Stalag VII-A near Munich. The march came during the coldest winter in Germany in 50 years, as the Russians advanced from the east. Stalag VII-A was liberated by Gen. George Patton’s Third Army on April 29, 1945, the day before Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker.

John’s mother, Marilyn Jeffers Walton, over the years has helped organize reunions and symposiums mainly for Stalag Luft III survivors and their families, and the families of POWs who have passed away. The reunions began in 1946 and were run by the former POWs themselves for six decades, but as the ranks dwindled, their families took over.

She also is the author of several books, including Rhapsody in Junk (2007), about her voyage of discovery in retracing her father’s wartime experiences, including at Stalag Luft III. The title is the name of her father’s B-24.

Because of my 2004 book Third Down and a War to Go and the many pieces I have done tying World War II with sports, I was invited to attend one of those reunions and symposiums a few years ago, when it was held at the Air Force Academy. In part, the site was a tribute to former AFA superintendent Lt. General Albert P. Clark, who had been the head escape officer in the South Compound at Stalag Luft III and was a POW since July 1942. He was one of the youngest lieutenant colonels in the camp and the first USAAF fighter pilot taken prisoner of war in Germany. He lived first in North Compound with the British, becoming “Big S,” head of security operations for Roger Bushell, mastermind of the “Great Escape.” The spring 1944 escape from the North Compound, redrawn a bit by Hollywood in the 1963 film, involved British Royal Air Force POWs from countries within the British Commonwealth, as well as Polish, French, Lithuanian, Dutch, Greek, Czech, and Norwegian pilots flying with the British — representing 13 countries in all. Americans were in the South, Center and West Compounds. Even after the Gestapo murders of 50 of the 76 recaptured escapees, the Americans continued to construct escape tunnels.

While communicating with Marilyn Walton, she mentioned I might know her son. John Walton. The radio voice of the Washington Capitals.

Small world, isn’t it?

I wasn’t able to make the reunion and symposium because of work obligations, and I regret that to this day.

Down a couple of booths from Walton in the press box Friday night was Avalanche radio play-by-play voice Marc Moser, an aficionado of World War II aircraft. And down on the ice before the game was Avalanche game-night anthem singer Jake Schroeder, like Moser a tireless advocate of military veteran causes. Schroeder is executive director of the Denver Police Activities League for area youths. Together, Moser and Schroeder annually help escort American World War II veterans to revisit the sites of their battles and service in Europe.

My connection?

One of the heroes in Third Down and a War to Go, about the 1942 Wisconsin Badgers winning one version of the national championship, heading off to serve in World War II, and not all coming back, was halfback and co-captain Mark Hoskins. My father, Jerry, was an 18-year-old sophomore backup guard on that team before his stint as a P-38 fighter pilot in the Pacific Theater, and he looked up to Hoskins and co-captain Dave Schreiner, who was killed in the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.

Hoskins was alive when I researched the book, and I traveled to interview him at his home in San Diego.

He was a B-17 co-pilot whose plane was shot down over Hungary in a mission against German military targets on June 27, 1944, and he ended up a POW in Stalag Luft III. Amid our far-reaching, marathon discussions, we talked at length about his experiences in the South Compound, with prisoners organizing such things as football and hockey games, a “radio” station broadcast over loudspeakers, the Circuit newspaper (actually a one-page sheet posted on the cookhouse wall), plays and concerts — and a lot more. (And horrible, nauseating food supplied by the Germans and broken up only by Red Cross contributions.) Hoskins was a standout in the compound football games, covered by the POW newspaper. The other star was former Kentucky back Jess Tunstill.

The above and below are shots of hockey games in Center Compound of the camp, thanks to skate blades supplied by the YMCA through Sweden. The POWs would attach the blades to their shoes, by straps or they were screwed to the sole of the worn shoes. Hoskins, being a good Wisconsin boy, played, often with the German commandant and guards enjoying the games. In fact, a team from the South Compound beat a squad from the Center Compound 3-1 on January 23, 1945, only four days before the Germans forced the Stalag Luft III prisoners to leave and begin the perilous march to Moosburg and Stalag VII-A.

About 10,000 prisoners (among them Hoskins and Jeffers) began the 52-mile trek in bitter cold and walked 20 miles through the first night. Older German guards could barely keep up, and it was not unusual to have the younger POWs carry their rifles for them. Many collapsed and had to be left behind to freeze to death. Eventually, the survivors prisoners, many quite ill, were crammed into 40&8 boxcars (40 men or 8 horses) in Spremberg, Germany, and completed the journey on the third night. The new camp, a German Army (Wehrmacht) camp meant to hold only a few thousand, then holding 120,000 allied men, made the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) camp, Stalag Luft III, seem like the Waldorf-Astoria.

Among Hoskins’ contributions to my research was loaning me his copy of “Clipped Wings,” an amazing school yearbook-type work about the South Compound prisoners’ experiences in Stalag Luft III and, ultimately, Stalag VII-A. Trying to describe it won’t do it justice, and I made myself a home-made photocopied and bound version before returning the book to Hoskins, who died in June 2003, a year before Third Down and a War to Go was published. He did see a copy of the manuscript shortly before he died, though, and gave it a thumbs up. (In the original posting of this blog, the grainy photos of hockey were from “Clipped Wings.” These are better.)

I regret not being able to ask Thomas Jeffers and Mark Hoskins, who arrived at Stalag Luft III at approximately the same time, if they ever ran into each other at the camp. Or even played hockey together. The proximity of their dates of captivity would have put them in the same group for interrogation in Frankfurt, Germany, before being sent to Stalag Luft III together.

So, yes, look at those pictures of the hockey games, marvel at the American prisoners’ ingenuity under difficult circumstances, and salute them all … and their contemporaries.

I’ll close with this.

John Walton, with an assist from his mother, helped set up an appearance at the Capitals-Hurricanes game on March 15 of a former Stalag Luft III POW, 2nd Lt. John Pedevillano, 93. He was on the ice with singer Caleb Green for the national anthem.

If you can watch that and, especially while seeing Pedevillano emotionally dab at his eyes during his introduction and mouthing the anthem lyrics, not get at least misty … well, you’re “stronger” than I am.

My father, who was about as young as you could be and go through training and complete an entire tour of duty as a pilot in World War II, died in 2001. He had flown 67 missions in a one-man, twin-engine plane for the Air Force’s forerunner, the Army Air Corps/Air Forces, and as Oregon’s head coach, he went against the Air Force Falcons three times. Yet nobody in the media ever mentioned his connection, in part because he didn’t even include in his coaching bio an explanation of the four-year gap between his sophomore and junior seasons at Wisconsin. That was so typical, wasn’t it? He was the only man on the planet who earned both the World War II Air Medal (three times) and a Super Bowl championship ring (twice). He would be 91 now.

From the above picture taken in advance of the 2013 draft, only one — Nathan MacKinnon — now is playing with the NHL team that drafted him.

Seth Jones, who played some of his youth hockey in Denver, Wednesday was traded from Nashville to Columbus, for center Ryan Johansen. They both were No. 4 overall picks in the draft, Johansen in 2010 and then Jones. It also was a deal involving former Portland Winterhawks being swapped straight up.

Drouin, the No. 3 overall pick in 2013, and MacKinnon’s linemate with the Halifax Mooseheads, is with Syracuse of the American Hockey League after being sent down as it came out that he earlier had requested a trade from the Lightning.

I’m not one to get too excited or draw excessive inferences from the presence of scouts/executives from other teams at NHL games — the reasons often are “innocent” or even involve travel convenience — but Pat Verbeek, the assistant general manager of the Lightning, is at the Avalanche-Blues game as I type.

Tampa Bay Lightning winger Jonathan Drouin, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2013 NHL draft, recently requested a trade and on Monday was on his way to report to Syracuse of the American Hockey League after being demoted.

Avalanche coach Patrick Roy went against Drouin in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, and Colorado center Nathan MacKinnon was Drouin’s linemate with the 2013 Memorial Cup champion Halifax Mooseheads.

After Monday’s morning skate, I asked MacKinnon about Drouin’s situation and whether they had been in touch with each other.

“I’ve talked to him a little bit,” MacKinnon said. “It’s always tough. You want to play. Obviously, he hasn’t played a ton in Tampa, getting scratched sometimes or whatever. I know he loved Tampa, but I think he just wants to find the best situation for himself.”

Did he think about Drouin coming to Colorado?

“That’d be awesome,” MacKinnon said. “I don’t to speculate too much on that stuff. If I can play with him again, that’d be great, but I’m sure they want a lot for him and we have a good team here as well. Obviously, if the opportunity arises, it would be a lot of fun.”

Here’s what Roy, who had those notable battles with the Mooseheads while coaching the Quebec Remparts, said when I asked him about Drouin: “I think they (the Lightning) just want him to mold into what they’re trying to do, which means they like to have guys playing in the minors and then move up. That’s what happened to (Ondrej) Palat, to (Alex) Killorn, a few of their guys. That’s what happened in Detroit when (Steve) Yzerman was there. That’s what they’re trying to do and we have to respect that. And that’s what we’re trying to do with (Nikita) Zadorov, with (Chris) Bigras.”

In 19 games for the Lightning this season — he also has been limited by injuries — Drouin has two goals and eight points. In 89 NHL games, he has six goals and 40 points.

With Semyon Varlamov again in the net, the Avalanche will attempt to overcome the dreaded home-ice disadvantage Thursday night and win its fourth consecutive game against the New York Islanders.

Varlamov has been better since allowing four goals on 27 shots against the Islanders in Brooklyn on Nov. 30. That was the night the third defensive pairing — Nate Redmond and Brandon Gormley — especially struggled and both were minus-3.

This is from my game story that night:

“They’ve been playing some good hockey for us,” said Avalanche coach Patrick Roy. “Tonight was maybe a mismatch for them in some ways. But it’s back-to-back games and we just needed to use everybody tonight. Obviously when they are out there, we need that extra save from our goaltender.”

Roy added that those “mismatches” for Gormley and Redmond were “because they (the Isles) have four good lines. It’s a team with a lot of depth.”

Colorado’s top line of Matt Duchene (minus-2), Gabe Landeskog (minus-3) and Nathan MacKinnon (minus-3) also struggled, at least on paper. Duchene played despite being ill Sunday night and Monday morning and missing the morning skate.

Gormley will be a healthy scratch against the Islanders, and Redmond — back in the lineup Tuesday against Chicago after a run of healthy scratches — will be paired with Nate Guenin.

And finally, every time the Islanders come to Denver, I’m reminded of covering the Nov. 28, 1979 Islanders-Rockies game at McNichols Sports Arena in which Billy Smith became the first NHL goalie to ever be credited with a goal.

The “be credited with” was important.

The Don Cherry-coached Rockies were leading 4-3 and had control of the puck in the Islanders’ zone when referee Bryan Lewis raised his arm, signaling a delayed penalty on the Islanders – which turned out to be hooking on Mike Kaszycki. Because the Rockies had the puck, play was to continue until the Islanders touched it. Then Lewis would blow the whistle, stopping play, and Kaszycki would go to the penalty box.

Colorado goalie Bill McKenzie headed to the bench, replaced by a sixth attacker. The puck ended up in the right-wing corner, and rookie defenseman Rob Ramage – assuming someone would take his place at the point – passed the puck toward the blue line. Problem was, nobody was there, and the puck crossed the blue line. And the red line. And the other blue line. The Islanders saw what was coming and raised their sticks, and the puck slid into the empty net.

The NHL just announced that Avalanche forward Matt Duchene has been named the league’s No. 3 star for the month of November.

Winger Patrick Kane of the Blackhawks was the No. 1 star and goalie Braden Holtby of the Capitals was No. 2.

Here’s what the NHL said about Duchene, who actually is playing right wing now on the line with Nathan MacKinnon and Gabe Landeskog.

THIRD STAR – MATT DUCHENE, C, COLORADO AVALANCHE

Duchene paced the NHL with 11 goals and ranked second with 20 points in 14 games to power the Avalanche (9-14-1, 19 points) to a 6-8-0 November. In doing so, he became the first Avalanche player to score 11 or more goals in one calendar month since February 2003 (Milan Hejduk: 12). Duchene collected at least one point in 11 of 14 outings, highlighted by six multi-point performances and three multi-goal games. He also registered a trio of three-point performances: Nov. 10 at PHI (2-1—3), Nov. 14 at MTL (1-2—3) and Nov. 28 vs. WPG (1-2—3). The 24-year-old Haliburton, Ont., native shares fifth in the NHL with 12 goals and has 22 points in 24 contests this season.

In the Spotlight that ran with my Sunday NHL column, I mentioned that among the 10 arenas where both NHL and NBA teams played, Brooklyn’s Barclays Center and Denver’s Pepsi Center had the lowest combined average attendance figures.

Here is the complete rundown, with attendance through Thanksgiving 2015.

Notes: The ranking is significantly affected by arena size and all teams in the first seven arenas below sell out — or come very close to it — every night. Also, because of configurations, NBA capacity is higher than NHL capacity in each arena. Finally, there are no value judgments being made here. It is no market’s “duty” to support professional sports franchises. I despise it when folks wearing press credentials who haven’t paid to get into a game in 25 years grouse about a market’s attendance as if there’s something “wrong” with the decisions about spending entertainment dollars. But here are the numbers.

SUNRISE, Fla. — I know the rules. I haven’t been away from day-to-day NHL coverage that long before recently being assigned to the Avalanche beat for the rest of the season. And I’ve covered the league for many years in two previous stints.

I’m supposed to tee it up and take cheap shots at the fan bases — and use words like “non-existent” and “alleged” — in Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill and South Florida, where the Avalanche has played its last two games. Or to ascribe it to such things as “Bettman’s Folly.”

The facts:

— The announced crowd in Raleigh for the Avalanche’s 3-2 shootout loss to the Hurricanes Tuesday was 12,965. Carolina’s home average of 12,456 is 29th, or next-to-last, in the NHL.

— The announced crowd in Sunrise for the Avalanche’s 4-2 victory over the Panthers Thursday was 9,584. Florida’s home average of 10,250 is 30th.

I’m going to take a wild guess that these folks, pictured in the BT&T Center, drew better than the Avs-Panthers

…and these folks, too.

But keep in mind that the Avalanche’s home average of 15,837, while appreciably better than those for both those teams, is only 23rd in the league. And the same reasons I’ve heard for the drop in Avalanche attendance since the 11-year sellout streak apply to at least some extent for both those franchises.

One of the funny things about this to me always has been when outsiders belittle the lack of attendance in certain markets, then say of the less-than-sellout crowds in their own markets: Well, there are good reasons for that …

Some of the issues:

— On-ice performance. Yes, we all remember — don’t we? — when the Panthers advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1996, Scott Mellanby’s attack on a rat in the Miami Arena begat a toss-rats-on-the-ice fad, and the NHL was hot in South Florida … at least for a time? That was before the Panthers moved to the new arena well north of downtown Miami, closer to Fort Lauderdale. And the Hurricanes also were a major draw when they were successful, including two visits to the NHL Finals and a Stanley Cup in 2006. They play in what amounts to the Silicon Valley of the east coast, and a vibrant fan base embraced the Hurricanes — no, not turning it into Toronto overnight, but showing that the Hurricanes could draw. Read more…

Avalanche coach Patrick Roy looks up at the clock during the first period of a preseason game against the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday. (Ryan Remiorz, The Associated Press)

Back to meat and potatoes here on the “Hockey Talk” podcast. 58 minutes of hardcore Avs talk on this one, with my guest, a regular on this thing, Dario Ronzone, Avs superfan and all-around hockey savant.

Dario and I break down every aspect of the Avs’ preseason so far, to how they’ve looked in the games to how they looked in training camp to who should stay and who should go for the opening night roster. Is the Avs’ 0-3-1 preseason so far an omen for things to come after their 112-point season of a year ago? Or are things going to be just fine? That and a lot more is on the table here.

Colorado Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic talks to media about the coming season on Sept. 18, 2014, at the Pepsi Center in Denver. (RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post)

MONTREAL — I shot video of Patrick Roy’s Peyton Manning-like media scrum and other cool stuff from the Bell Centre but having problems uploading them. Take my word for it, this was like a Stanley Cup Finals Game 7 morning skate. Roy took a zillion questions in French and a half-zillion in English before the 28 Avs players on the trip had a little hop.

I’m writing this at 12:30 p.m. local time and the Roy and fellow Hockey Hall of Famer Joe Sakic are still on the ice, playing shinny with the assistant coaches and the eight scratches in Thursday night’s preseason game against the Canadiens. Among the scratches are forwards Jarome Iginla, Daniel Briere and Alex Tanguay, defensemen Erik Johnson, Brad Stuart, Jan Hejda and Stefan Elliott, and goalie Semyon Varlamov. Those guys will play against Montreal on Friday in Quebec City.

EDMONTON, Alberta — Greetings from balmy Edmonton, where the Avalanche begins a season-ending, four-game road trip Tuesday against the Oilers. It really is pleasant here, albeit a bit muddy because of all the snow melt. I was here in early December with the Avs and it was something like minus-39. When I landed it was around 40 on the plus side.

I love working in Canada because there is that extra excitement about the local hockey teams and their next games. Major-junior’s Edmonton Oil Kings are in the first round of the Western Hockey League playoffs and getting good space in papers. And so are the Oilers, who are playing some of their best hockey of the season. They beat mighty Anaheim 4-2 on Sunday at Rexall Place.

Meanwhile, about that headline: the U16 Colorado Thunderbirds led by captain Alex Overhardt, son of prominent Denver-based NHL agent Kurt Overhardt, nearly won their second Tier I national championship on Sunday in Green Bay, Wis. In the 16-under title game of youth hockey’s highest level (Tier 1, triple-A), the Thunderbirds fell 2-1 to Team Wisconsin in four overtimes. “It was an epic battle with both teams leaving it all on the ice,” said Colorado coach Angelo Ricci, the former DU Pioneer who is also the Thunderbirds director.

If I were Canadian, today would be a sad day, because Team Canada’s World Junior Championship juggernaut that includes Edmonton Oilers young star Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and other NHLers were pounded 5-1 by the Americans in Russia. It’s always gold or bust for the Canadians, and their boys have busted in this year’s semifinals against a USA squad that appears to get better by the game.

Team USA — which includes Colorado-raised defenseman Seth Jones, the youngest player on the team, and goaltending coach David Lassonde, who has the same title at the University of Denver — will play Sweden for the gold medal Saturday morning (5:30 a.m. MT). Canada will play Russia for the bronze (2 a.m. MT Saturday), a game it probably would prefer to skip.

Still, every decent-sized Canadian newspaper will have a WJC story/picture with captain/refer on its cover Friday. It will be, without a doubt, their biggest sports story of the day (unless the NHL lockout ends in the next 10 hours). Canada’s lifeblood is hockey, and being the best of the international sport speaks to its national pride.

Here in America, most sports sections will have little or no mention of Team USA’s remarkable victory and chance for gold. We’re not educated enough about the importance of the world’s second-biggest international ice hockey tournament, and that most of the NHL’s future stars come from the WJC and some will go on to play in the Olympics. Most people don’t realize that America’s 19-under mix of NCAA and major-junior stars just pounded what could have been Canada’s best WJC team in the past 20 years, given that RNH and others are only available to participate because of the NHL lockout. I often hear my Canadian friends say they are never completely playing with their best WJC lineup, because guys like Matt Duchene and Ryan O’Reilly of the Avalanche were locked in with their NHL team when they were 18 and 19. Plenty of merit there, and make no mistake, Duchene and O’Reilly would have felt like rock stars to represent their country in the WJC when they were eligible.

Most people don’t realize Seth Jones — who likely will be the No. 1 overall NHL draft pick in June — is the son of former Nuggets player and assistant coach Popeye Jones, and the Team USA assistant captain grew up playing for the Littleton Hawks (double-A) and Colorado Thunderbirds (triple-A) before moving to Dallas at age 13. Most people don’t know he probably would have played in last year’s WJC as a 16-year-old, if he wasn’t injured before it began.

Most people don’t realize Lassonde, the former associate head coach under Dick Umile at New Hampshire, has molded DU’s Jussi Olkinuora — a former walk-on — into one of college hockey’s best puck-stoppers, and Lassonde could end up being Umile’s hand-picked successor.

Here’s to Team USA and its quest for WJC gold, because … you don’t get enough of this kind of stuff in the States.

Avalanche goaltending consultant Kirk McLean was at Cutthroats practice today, along with former Avalanche tough guy Scott Parker, who is a friend of Cutthroats coach Derek Armstrong. McLean obviously has keen interest in the development of Avalanche-drafted goalies Kent Patterson and Kieran Millan, the Cutthroats’ two ‘tenders.
Meet Peyton Manning, the hockey player in Littleton.

“We’re off to a nice start after going 2-1-0-0 through three games in three days to start the season. In the first two games against Oklahoma City, the Monsters won 2-1 and fell 3-2, and held Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jordan Eberle off the scoresheet over the two games. Yesterday, the Monsters blanked Toronto 4-0, and Calvin Pickard was awesome, stopping all 40 shots he saw in his first pro shutout. A big reason for the 40 shots Toronto had were (its) 12 power-play chances. Needless to say, the Monsters PK was a perfect 12-for-12 on Sunday against a talented Toronto power-play unit that includes Jake Gardiner, Nazem Kadri, Joe Colborne, and Keith Aucoin, among others. The Monsters are 25-for-26 on the PK through three games against the two teams that reached the Western Conference Final last season; Toronto and OKC.”

Some individual notes:

Pickard was awesome in net (Sunday), and is 1-1-0 through two starts. Sami Aittokallio was extremely sharp on Friday; he stopped 29 of 30 in his first pro start in North America.

Tyson Barrie has goals in each of his last two games, and his goal Sunday in Toronto was a highlight reel goal. He went top-shelf on what looked like a shootout move, except it was at game speed.

Paul Carey scored Saturday and had a couple assists Sunday; he is also seeing PK time, and looks very good at both ends of the ice.

Forward Joey Hishon (head) is still on IR and hasn’t joined the team yet.

Defenseman Duncan Siemens, the 11th player picked in the 2011 draft, is with the Saskatoon Blades of the WHL.

This is not a PR stunt. Detroit Red Wings defenseman said he is “excited” for his Central Hockey League debut with the Denver Cutthroats Friday at the Denver Coliseum, but said he hopes the NHL lockout ends “tomorrow” and he returns to Detroit immediately.

Whatever happens during his CHL tenure, he will show up to play. Both he and Cutthroats coach Derek Armstrong scoffed at the notion Quincey is just a PR stunt for the start-up franchise.

“That’s the first I’ve heard of that, but I plan on playing,” Quincey said before smiling and adding: “I don’t see Cully or Army benching me.”

Brent “Cully” Cullaton, the Cutthroats director of player operations, and Armstrong, a long-time Los Angeles Kings forward, are two competitive Canadians. Armstrong said Quincey is a top-four NHL defenseman and he will play like one for the Cutthroats.

“Oh geez, he’s going to play 20 minutes a night,” Armstrong said. “This is a great bunch of guys and he’s among four or five guys on this team with NHL experience. Eventually he’s going back to the Detroit Red Wings, who lost Nicklas Lidstrom, and he’s a top-four NHL defenseman. He has to play hockey somewhere. He doesn’t want to go to Europe. His (girlfriend) works here. He’s going to play 20 minutes a night, I’ll tell you right now. Probably won’t kill penalties, because I don’t know if he’s going to block shots or not, to be honest with you, but he’ll run our power play and play against the top line every night. He’s here to play hockey. It’s truly not a PR stunt.”

[media-credit name=”Hector Acevedo” align=”alignright” width=”275″]

Kyle Quincey speaks with reporters.

That said, Quincey and I talked about several other topics. Such as, is he concerned about your typical CHL goon?

“If I’ve never played in the minors before, that might have been a concern for me, but with 200 games (in the minors) and really being that guy back in the day and having to make a name for myself, I know what to expect,” Quincey said. “I’ve never played in this league, but I’ve watched some games. First couple games maybe I’ll have my head on a swivel a little more than in the NHL, and maybe I won’t assume the guy is going to hit me clean, but at the end of the day, hockey is hockey. I don’t see guys taking liberties on me but if I do I will be ready for it.”

What other opportunities did you explore (he is not eligible to play in the AHL)?: “Europe was explored, but there wasn’t much interest there. The biggest thing for me was to stay in Denver. This is our home and I love being here. So the chance to play hockey and live here were huge for me.”

About Armstrong, his former LA King teammate during his rookie NHL season in 2008-09: “Hanging out with Army last year (Armstrong has had an off-season home in Littleton since 1995), his first year retired, was a tough thing — a guy that loves hockey so much. When he told me he got this gig, I was so happy for him, and I know how good of a coach he’s going to be because of the passion he has for the game, the love for it, and how much he wants to win. He really did help me along and showed me a few veteran moves my first real year in the NHL, when I was in L.A. I go from Detroit/Canada to being picked up on waivers and not ever have been to Hollywood and L.A. and feeling like I had a do or die situation, to make the team and stay there. He was the veteran guy on the team and really coached all of us along.”

Quincey was a youngster on a Kings team that included goalie Jonathan Quick and defenseman Drew Doughty. “We had something like 10 rookies and we fought for and loved each other every night and (Armstrong) was a big part of that. He brought us all together … Army taught me how to be a great teammate.”

Armstrong said Quincey is playing for him for all the right reasons.

“He’s doing this because he’s a hockey guy, and he doesn’t want to miss any hockey,” Army said. “He needs to play. And he wants to do it here because he doesn’t want to go to Europe, he lives in town, he’s my good friend and he knows the way I’m going to coach. Bottom line is, he wants to play hockey.”

Well-written NHL.com story about the Avalanche’s top-10 prospects. Among the four goalies on the list, two figure to be headed to Denver to play for the start-up Cutthroats of the Central Hockey League. I suppose Tyson Barrie is listed and Stefan Elliott is not because Elliott played 39 games with the Avs last season as a rookie and Barrie just 10, but Barrie actually played at the end of the season when Elliott was often scratched. They are the same age.

I met with longtime NHL forward Derek Armstrong yesterday at the Denver Coliseum, which has new boards, glass, benches, etc., a new digital scoreboard and sound system and other state-of-the-art arena stuff. Armstrong, a member of that IHL-champion Denver Grizzlies team in 1994-95, is the Cutthroats head coach/executive, and we will have a feature on him soon (pegged for Saturday’s paper, but you never know) and blog the leftovers here. Armstrong is a super-interesting Canadian who married a local girl — they met during the Grizzlies’ one season in Denver — and has lived and trained in the off-season ever since. Not surprisingly, one of Army’s best friends is former LA Kings teammate and Avalanche character superstar Ian Laperriere, who, by the way, got his nose fixed and is working with the Flyers. Army and Lappy are built from the same mold.

In memory of Jessica (Redfield) Ghawi and the other innocent people killed or injured in the Aurora shooting.

The affable Gabe Gauthier, one of the most talented and funniest players I know, will play for the Colorado Eagles of the ECHL this season, sources says. Gauthier, 28, concluded a stellar four-year career at the University of Denver in 2006, leading the Pioneers to NCAA championships in 2004 and 2005. He scored the goal in the 1-0 title-game victory over goalie Jimmy Howard and the Maine Black Bears in that surreal contest in Boston in ’04, and was simply on fire during DU’s march to the ’05 crown in Columbus, Ohio. What a terrific college hockey player.

Gauthier, a 2005 first-team All-American (26 goals in 43 games), signed with the LA Kings after college and played for their AHL affiliate, the Manchester Monarchs, and the Kings from 2006 to 2010, seeing action in eight games with the Kings. He played last season with the Augsburg Panthers in Germany and could conceivably still play in the Show.

It would have been nice to see former DU star Matt Carle in an Avalanche sweater, but his signing last night with the Tampa Bay Lightning has a good feel to it. Carle — the savvy, puck-moving defenseman who signed a hefty six-year, $33-million deal — briefly played for the Lightning in 2008, after his younger brother, David, was drafted by the club in the seventh round of the draft that year.

David was pegged as a top-two-round draft pick until he was diagnosed with a deadly heart defect at the NHL Combine, ending his competitive playing career. But the Tampa Bay ownership group at the time — which included Len Barrie, father of Avalanche defenseman Tyson Barrie — still drafted David with one of the last picks of the seventh round, as a good-will gesture/sign of support, and perhaps hope for a cure.

Len Barrie and Oren Koules no longer own the Lightning, but Matt Carle was touched by the orgnization’s gesture, and perhaps that had something to do with his return to south Florida (plus $33 million). David has since developed into a fine coach. He spent four years on George Gwozdecky’s staff at DU, earned a degree, and is now an assistant coach for the junior-A Green Bay Gamblers of the United States Hockey League, under former DU goalie coach Derek Lalonde. David’s forced retirement, however, is still a shame.

Matt Carle was the most dominant DU skater (non-goalie) I have ever seen, leading the Pios to consecutive national championships as a freshman and sophomore, and I’ll never forget in 2007 or early 2008, when he was with the San Jose Sharks and visiting Magness Arena the night before a game against the Avalanche, when he told me David “is better than me.” David had just committed to DU as a standout D-man at Minnesota’s Shattuck-St. Mary’s and was considered one of the country’s top recruits.

On the bright side, DU gained a good assistant coach along with Patrick Wiercioch, who took David’s spot in that freshmen class and enjoyed a sensational two-year career with the Pioneers.

Anyway, nice signing for Matt Carle, who has played in 80, 82 and 82 regular-season games for the Flyers the past three seasons, plus a whopping 45 playoff games during that stretch. Just 27, he has blossomed into an elite NHL defenseman and has a decent chance of making the next U.S. Olympic team.

Full story about tonight’s goalie situation and Avalanche injury updates — including the loss of defenseman/team spokesman Kyle Quincey — against the Washington Capitals here.

A couple quick other notes: Former Avs forward Matt Hendricks, a great guy, is back in the lineup for Washington after missing four games with a knee injury. Defenseman Mike Green, who has missed the past 16 games with a groin injury, didn’t participate in the morning skate after stretching outside the locker room. Doesn’t look like he’ll play.

Here is Danny Winnik talking about his Gordie Howe hat trick in the second period of Thursday’s 5-4 loss at San Jose. Winnik, a k a Frank, assisted on a goal, had a good scrap with a very tough Ryane Clowe, and scored on a nice tap-in from a behind-the-net feed from Paul Stastny:

Here’s a little insight from TJ Galiardi on how Frank got his nickname: “We go to this place as our pregame meal, and there’s a guy who works there, a pretty funny guy, he’s a character, and his name is Frank, and one day I just starting calling Winny Frank and it kind of stuck. Everyone likes it.”

Agreed. Frank is better than Winny. Too Disney.

I ran Frank’s Howe “hatty” past defenseman Shane O’Brien, a big talker who has a lot of respect for old-school hockey.

“It’s a rare feat in the league. Not too many guys around the league get a Gordie Howe hat trick,” O’Brien said. “I didn’t know it was all in one period. So that’s a great period. But he fought Clowe, one of the toughest guys in the league, hung in there with him, had a great fight with him, and then he got rewarded by going to the net and scored a goal from the blue paint. It was a great game for Winny, and a Gordie Howe hat trick is a pretty cool thing.”

Finally, Avs forward Kevin Porter is available after serving a four-game suspension but he won’t play tonight. The Avs are going with the same lineup they had Thursday at San Jose.

I didn’t want to write this kind of thing. God, if there’s one thing I hate, it’s the kneejerk, moralistic, holier-than-thou, reactionary scold of a sports column right after something terrible happens to a sports figure away from the arena. It’s cheap, it’s too easy and 99.999999 percent of the time, the columnist on his/her high horse doesn’t give a bleep about that sports figure or what happened. Doubly awful is the reactionary scold of a column bathed in false, weepy, violin-string manipulative pathos.
And they are always the kinds of columns that win some kind of worthless journalism award too.

So forgive me. But the people around the game of hockey, and this includes the media too probably, need to come to together in some way to try to figure out how to put a stop to a certain class of player from wanting to do harm to themselves when their playing days are either numbered or over. Dramatic sounding? A little moralistic and preachy? Maybe.

But even for shock-proof people like myself, the thought of Wade Belak doing what he apparently did today in a Toronto hotel room sent a ripping volt through the system. He was the third NHL tough guy to die this summer, all from apparently self-inflicted, troubled means. Once is a fluke, twice a coincidence and three times is an unmistakable trend.

Fighters in hockey and professional wrestlers have sometimes been lumped in together, but the hockey players had mostly, to this point, avoided the same comparison to the many tragic, self-destructive ends to many wrestlers’ lives in recent years.

But Belak’s death will almost certainly bring about changes to fighting’s role in the NHL, and/or significant steps to address mental – not just physical — health hazards that come to the role known as hockey enforcer.

Look, I’m going to keep this “professional.” Fact is, I don’t care whether the Avalanche wins or loses. Just past that stage in life, folks, where I’m going to care at all about a bunch of guys being paid big money to play a game of “mercenary vs. mercenary.” I know a lot of you think I’m either a huge Avalanche homer, or that I’m relentlessly negative about them and hate them somehow. They say you’re doing your job in this business if people on both sides think that.

There are some players I just have to laugh at in this game, though, and Cal Clutterbuck is one of them. Nothing against the guy at all. He’s good at what he does, which is drive you crazy with the game of “I hit you first, then try to draw the penalty with your retaliation hit against me.” These guys have been in hockey for time immemorial.

That’s fine, I respect that. It’s a game. You have to play every angle, and if being the agitator who gets the opposition to lose their minds and, hence, the game is what you need to do to succeed, then by all means do it, especially if you’ll be paid a million dollars for it.

But, and part of me hates saying this in a way, because I really don’t care either way. But, Cal Clutterbuck is a cowardly hockey player.
He’s Bill Laimbeer on skates, folks.

Again, if it works for you and you have success being that type of player, then you’ll actually get grudging respect from me. Anything that makes you a winner, we can all admire that in the end.

But, come on, did the Wild forward really talk a lot of smack about the Avalanche tonight, after a December 3-1 victory?

“There’s some guys over there, two guys in particular, I’m shocked they’re still even playing in the league. If they’re going to take a penalty, take a penalty.

“We’re on the road, we’ll take a power play any day of the week. If they want to flaunt their egos, they want to show how tough they are, well, guess what, we’re going to beat you, and we’re coming for them in the standings.”

Let’s just establish a couple of islands of irony first, before we move on. Clutterbuck talking smack after a 3-1 win over an injury-ravaged team in December, is bathed in irony considering his team hasn’t made the playoffs for two straight seasons.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.

Chambers covers college and professional hockey for The Denver Post. He has written for the Post since 1994, after dumping his first 9-to-5 office job a couple years out of college. He primarily follows the University of Denver hockey team and helps cover the Avalanche.